thank you Mauro! really, i learned all about that green horse thing in an *American* book about colour management
But then i wdon't spit on the French impressionist thing! I am a big fan!

Thanks a lot Bob!
really i am a lazy modller and I was really pained when I found out I had to spend another hour on that diorama so that i could make him a saber..
Indeed we can leave to Dragon the image of the japanese officer with his samouraï sword as indeed the sabers worn by navy personnel were in fact European designed. No doubt that at the Meiji time, when Japan turned into a powerful western like country, they also changed a few things about their armement -including the sabers
Here is a Wikipedia file, but when you Google for "Japanese sabers WW2" you won't get much Samurai stuff!

As for you to see my stuff live, "Alberta, Canada", wouldn't I wish to show you that one in person

Juan friend, mucho mucho thanks for all the support and congratulations I got from you during all that built, that was really appreciated, and I am quite pleased you like that one

Yo Nicolas,

Great finish! The vegetation is realistic and have nice colors.

Again a nice subject out of youre hands...thanks for sharing.

Greetz Nico

Another winner Nicolas! A very interesting subject and I think you've really captured it well- the pose, the foliage and the aircraft wing all tell a great story. Have you though about perhaps adding some sort of explanation plate to go with the scene, detailing the history on which the scene is based?

Hello Nicolas. Very visual and effective. Yes, ground cover takes a lot of time to look convincing. It took several days to complete the bullrush's for my latest, and only 27 of them. I will try your way of using glue on the paper before the next one. The paper for the plants works very well but become extreamly fragile when painted. Since using paper to make my plants, I have used the small amount of P/E plants and such for filler just to get rid of it. The paper ones look so much better and being individualy made of different sizes and shapes, looks more natural. Good idea for thickining plants by the way. Medium gel has lots of uses. Oh, and the shading on your piece is fantastic, looks like sunlight filtering through the top growth.

Nicholas! Absolutely outstanding!

I read "Lightning Strike" by Donald Davis about 3 months ago right when you were getting started, it was quite the coincidence. Your vignette is perfect.

On Page 295 it reads:




I only post this for those people interested who don't own the book. Of particular note Yamamoto lost two fingers in the Battle of Tsushima Straits against the Russians in 1904, and on the day that he died was wearing his green uniform not his white or black naval uniform (though the rest of his visiting party were wearing white naval uniforms). I'm not sure if this was posted earlier.. I read through but might have missed it. Anyways two interesting facts for everyone.

The symbolism of your vignette is very powerful! Great job! I'll continue to follow!!

I'm not here to debate history, but I'll put my faith in researched information rather then the caption of a photo. I am totally open to new information as long as it has some validity to it. I can quote you other sources that state he wore a green uniform if you'd like.

A caption reading "last image taken alive" does not infer it was taken the morning he boarded his plane. Yes it is probably the last image take of him, but it could have been taken days if not weeks prior to his death.

Page 248-249 - The morning of his flight




PS - I'm a HE not a she!

Salut Nicolas!

I finally found the time to check your thread, Wow, what a progress!

Big confirming smile on my face during the read of your vegetation work!

From the amount of work needed to do vegetation convincingly to your comments about the weeds ( i commented negatively on the review) i agree completely, but nobody then you can describe it better (except perhaps your friend JBA) .

You succeded really well to turn this stiff paper stuff into great vegetation but i am certainly more impressed by your scratchbuild palm leaves. Really well done!

Greets

Claude

Thank you Nico as always!

yes Juan friend you are right, that's the number of views that matters, yet really I fell your support was really important for that one , so thanks again for your sympathy and all the help you've been sending me throught the build

Karl, I reckon I should add an explanation on a plate but I don't think I will, It's not much important that people get the sense -especially since I didn't choose the most historically accurate version of his death, but what matters is the ambiance really.. thanks

Thank you Bob! "There is no return policy on time spent", you bet... particularly when it comes to ground cover in modelling. And really I think I will take a few extra days of free time to complete this diorama in a more satisfactory way -maybe adding even more foliage, redoing the painting of Yamamoto..
yep, applying CA glue on this kind of foliage is probably the best idea I got throughout that SBS, and it really works, the stuff feels like plastic afterwards..

Carmen it's been months I think of sending you some real close up of what the groundwork of Dieppe looks like because I took some pictures 2 years ago
So that's nice from you dropping by with great compliments about my diorama!
I knew about tha version of Yamamoto's death you are depicting, but the real texte you rpovide is better than the ones I read before -hey I didn't know about those 2 fingers!! i feel like it's a good pretext for me to work on him again in a coupla months!
so thanks for sharing!
thinking of it again..
Dieppe and Fecamp nearby are really places I love.. feels weird of thinking of what befell of Canadians soldiers there.

But then about Historical reality and all.. well, I really choose right since the start of depicting Yamamoto the way i did for purely aesthetic reasons, because I knew I could get something really weird with all that green and a tainted white colour that would look like filtered from the trees like said Bob,
maybe this is why i wouldn't do any plaque like Karl suggests, because I am going too far from reality and did actually a fantasmagoric version of the great man's death.
So now as you state Juan, "opinions are like asses, everybody has got one", and I choose the most beautiful of those asses.
But then I also like to know how it really happened..

Just feel the ambiance and that's alright really..


Thanks Claude as usual -and especially fro your comments on my groundwork! as you are a real specialist! Well, those paper leaves are really useless as long as you don't bend them to a real shape, but when you are ready to spend the required amount of time this is a great great product!

thanks to all! Yamamoto is not entirely finished however and I will resume that blog in a few months!

Okay, back to buisness, sorry for the lightsaber, that one is for test purposes.

So I redid the wrinkles on the trousers. and that's it for today!

I just came upon this and I have to say, what a great idea for a diorama and fantastic execution thus far. The wing looks great.

Thanks Raul!
Now that's almost finished


I just found out that i either lost or forget to take a series of pics concerning the groundwork on that final part.. oh well.

Here is Admiral Yamamoto being painted. Nothing too fancy except that I again painted him in light green and brown green in the shadows areas.


OKAY, I got the message, thanks to my friend Kaiserine for giving me his Masterbox sword -like he told "I am building Japanese soldiers, not samouraïs", all the best for my diorama.


On this picture I absolutely realized at which point I only built some undergrowth, it really needed some extra bigger leaves at the top.



like this


or that



Those are Fredericus Rex Jungle plants I bought recently in order to finish that diorama. I bent them like the other ones, underpainted them in brown-black and overpainted them using wet on wet techniques with various shades of brow and green

aaah if you want a slightly ridiculous diorama, like you are in a 1970's movie, better use those
Apparently you can find them only in Madagascar.


Now the reason for my late, I had to buy a "router" not sure it's the right word, but that's a machine to carve wood.
Anyway, here are some sheet of wood cut in angle and painted in black.



They are fixed using that corner machine



And I end up getting that case..

Thanks for the update Nicolas!

Nice color transitions on the plants.

Shows that reference study is also needed for plants in a dio is supposed to be somewhat correct.

Greets

Claude

Yo Nicolas,

Back on the tracks I see...great, we can follow again!

Good that you will raise the hight of the plants...that will give more depth and the feeling of the jungle in this vignette.

Keep up!

Greetz Nico

aha the friends come back! Missed you guys

I totally agree with you Claude, "the nature around the panzer is equally as important as the panzer" so says the other one. Yep, as much research should be given in nature than in man made machines, the nature always wins anyway.

yep Nico more depth. yet as you will see, doing high plants was not that a big priority..


Slowly reaching to an end, hey I just found back the missing pictures!

So here are more Fredericus Rex jungle plants. Really I don't know where they found some of their species so I didn't improvised much and set for sort of palm plants as I know some grew near the wreck.


The small ones were once again shaped using a modelling knife pressed fern by fern against a packet cardboard (very soft).


Another Frederics rex set, this time a green one (you have the choice between tan and green for colours but I made the mistake of not specifying the "right" one for my order)


So well, those bigger palm ferns, I put them into shape using the palms of my haand like shown here, and pressing my modelling knife against it. it's smooth enough to avoid any tearing up the fragile paper


The central nerve is done by overloading a brush with acrylic gel and then let it run at the right place! This is very important to figure that one.. And that's pretty hard to achieve the right result



Anyway, after all this work, i call that 6 bllllooooodddddy months work (please read with teeth clenched) finished, fed up with it really, groundwork is hell!!

Ah, what was my goal at groundwork? like I think i told, in that book I mentioned there was something about downed pilots spending 1 week of walk to do 3kms, and how to be downed over the jungle meant sure death.
HOW ON EARTH IS IT POSSIBLE? You can imagine something thick but well, you can walk through nature can't you?
I think that's by watching something on that Japanese Suicide forest near the Fujiyama that I might have an answer (but maybe you guys may have another one),
THERE IS NO FLOOR.
You walk on something that is just not solid at all, just roots, leaves stuff like that so you fall constantly. this is what i wanted to overload the place with nature, even though the groundwork is not very high (and you will see why down that page) I wanted it to produce this overcrowded effect..

Anyway a few pics of the finished work -and don't forget to scroll down because the real surprise is below
Note that the black base is sticked on some bit of wood










Ah well, the last issue .. i got some (small) Flak because the diorama was too flat, of course it is!
The diorama only works WHEN VIEWED ON TOP!!
Same thing with my previous one Rolling Thunder..

have a look below (okay I could have cleaned the boxes before taking the pics)

Looks like I have solved the place problem of doing dioramas in the middle of a big town :mrgreen:

lovely, simply lovely. very creative and great techniques to make another stunner Nicolas. thanks so much for sharing this one with us. cheers, bd.

Your groundcover meets all the criteria you wanted to have. Mission accomplished!

What a great idea with the glass boxes!
Your main focus points really pops out and there is no distraction at all due to some unfitting background.
I already see the main living room wall fully plastered with your dio boxes in the years to come. What will Madame Cabaret say to that? LOL

Very inspiring !

Claude

Yo Nicolas,

Oh...damn! Now the depth is really come to the front...nice, very nice!

You opened a new root for displaying dios and vignettes...great display, it give the viewer a nice and very apart feeling and atmosfhere....good that you keeped the box in a black color...so your work will pop out nicely....sertenly with the Rolling Thunder.

More off that please

Greetz Nico

Thanks Bruce! Appreciated

Thanks Claude. Ah when it comes to Madame Cabaret, she already thought of hiding them behind a row of books which i think it's a sensible decision
That being said, I would 10 zillion times more having this on my mantelpiece than a SS Officer bust!

Thanks for getting it Nico Those boxes diorama are my idea since I 'am 22 or 23., i knew I had to show dead people in those but didn't fell like it at the time, I just had to wait!
Like they say "when you're over 40, you loose your hair, your teeth, your parents" Well when I began to loose things doing those didn't appear wrong anymore

That's an outstanding way to display them

Congrats indeed Nicolas

Thank you Spiderfrommars!